


Misdirected Competition

by fanficwriter013



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanficwriter013/pseuds/fanficwriter013
Summary: “Take me laser tagging and then push me into a corner and kiss me. Shoot me, then walk away.”





	Misdirected Competition

Clint and Bucky were an odd pair. It hadn’t started as anything, just Bucky would be at the range. Trying his best to avoid Tony, not to upset Steve any more than his entire past as the Winter Soldier had, and there would be a presence in the background. Clint would be perched, or he’d be tightening the string on his bow, or sharpening arrow tips. Expecting arrows for shaft integrity. He was just there.

Then it turned into comfortable quiet breakfasts. Bucky would have brewed coffee, and Clint would shuffle in grab himself a large soup bowl and sit down to drink it. Bucky wasn’t even sure he was seeing anything, as Clint sat and blinked blearily towards the far wall in the kitchen.

It wasn’t until they started watching tv shows together, that Bucky realized they might be friends. He wasn’t a little punk like Steve was, but there was something about the shorter blond man that seemed to be reminiscent of his friendship with Steve. But only dumber.

Clint was stupid competitive, and that made for some interesting nights at the compound. Nat was running an underground betting ring, that she’d made out like a bandit from. Whether it was the time that Bucky shot down a fly with a rubber band or the time that Clint literally fell out of the vents trying to startle Bucky. She seemed to always know which side would be the winning side.

Today was another one of those competitions, it had started as a friendly outing. He, Clint, Sam, Nat, Steve, and Wanda, whom Bucky was sure had no idea what was going on. Were going laser tagging. He knew that Nat and Sam had already placed bets on how long it would take before Clint threw some sort of a temper tantrum, and turned it into a competition. Bucky was sure it’d be after the scores came in from the first round, and Clint saw that he lost.

Bucky was right, and it was pretty funny. Clint had tried to throw the fake gun into the ground, but it was attached to the lame looking barely painted black crossing guard vests, and it hit the end of the cord, swung back and hit Clint in the knee.

“It’s gonna be Me, Nat, and Sam.” Clint snapped, pointing angrily in Bucky’s direction then sweeping it toward Steve and Wanda. “And the three of you are going down. Just you watch.” Each word was accented with a finger jabbed in his direction. Bucky shrugged.

“We’ll see about that, Barton. We’ll see.” He said it casually, mostly just to add more kindling to the fire that was Clint’s attitude right now. The archer’s face darkened, and he turned on his heel stomping off to the waiting area. Bucky was going to have fun with this round, and Clint would like it. No matter what the outcome would be. He’d see, the archer would see.

Their game was called, and they went into the vesting area. They split up into their teams of three, but Bucky wasn’t too worried about this. They hadn’t been close in the last game, and there would be other people on these teams too. The staff went over the rules, which Bucky was sure Clint would ignore this round. Bucky had clocked a perfectly suitable perching spot in the last game, but it had been out of bounds. He was sure the archer would go perch there for this game, take on a sniper position.

The staff let them through the teams' respective doors, and the countdown to the game began. Bucky didn’t have a strategy per se, but he was sure the possible bad idea bouncing around in his head would do. The vests made an annoying little chiming sound to indicate that the game was live, and Bucky scoped out the area.

He’d made sure that he was in a tight little corner, someplace he could put his back against the wall. It had only been a year earlier that he couldn’t even had participated in a game like this, too close to the war, too close to things he had seen when he had been a hostage in his own mind. But now, Bucky was still healing, but he was much better. As he suspected, Clint was perched up on that spot. Now his bad idea was making him move.

Bucky carefully made his way to a spot that was out of the line of the fake gun attached to Clint’s crossing guard vest.

“Clint, come down from there.” He called, and Clint looked around before spotting him. Bucky made a mental note to thank Natasha for changing the batteries in Clint’s hearing aids before they came out today.

“You’ll just shoot me, and then you’ll win.” Clint snapped, in a stage whisper. Someone was feeling touchy. Bucky held both his hands up.

“Truce? Just come down from there.” He said, and Clint gave him a sideways look before crawling down from his perch. Bucky walked over to him slowly, still both hands up.

“You take things way too seriously, Barton. Sometimes you have to lose to win at other things, better things.” He said, and he could see Clint giving him a weird look. He was about to start whining some sort of misguided reasons for why he was so competitive, ones that Bucky, himself, knew well enough with his PTSD, but still misguided. He couldn’t let him though, and he lurged forward capturing the smaller blond man’s lips with his own.

“Sometimes you have to lose to find the better things to win,” Bucky said again, as he pulled back. Watching Clint’s confused face, and that was his moment. In a flash, he’d picked up the fake gun and had shot Clint’s vest right in the middle. With Clint now in the vest disabled mode for a minute, he was quickly scampering back off to find another corner.

“Bucky!” Clint called, after a solid minute. He must have really stunned the archer. “That’s not fair. You used Nat tactics. That’s foul play.” His voice was almost echoing around the dark arena. Bucky chuckled to himself, Clint could be competitive but that was exactly what he had needed to find himself again.

**Author's Note:**

> Square: Clint/Bucky (Clint Bingo N1)


End file.
